... topics of argument, endeavors to show the necessity of an infallible judge, and reproaches the Reformers with want of unity, but is weak enough to ask why, since we see without knowing how, we may not have an infallible judge without knowing where? The Hind at one time is afraid to drink at the common brook, because she may be worried; but, walking home with the Panther, talks by the way of the Nicene fathers, and at last declares herself to be the Catholic Church. This absurdity was very properly ridiculed in The City Mouse and Country Mouse of Montague and Prior, and in the detection and censure of the incongruity of the fiction chiefly consists the value of their performance. . . . The original incongruity runs through the whole; the king is now Cæsar, and now the Lion, and the name Pan is given to the Supreme Being. But when this constitutional absurdity is forgiven, the poem must be confessed to be written with great smoothness of metre, a wide extent of knowledge, and an abundant multiplicity of images. The controversy is embellished with pointed sentences, diversified by illustrations, and enlivened by sallies of invective. Some of the facts to which allusions are made are now become obscure, and perhaps there may be many satirical passages little understood. As it was by its nature a work of defiance, a composition which would naturally be examined with the utmost acrimony of criticism, it was probably labored with uncommon attention; and there are, indeed, few negligences in the subordinate parts. The original impropriety and the subsequent unpopularity of the subject, added to the ridiculousness of its first elements, has sunk it into neglect; but it may be usefully studied as an example of poetical ratiocination, in which the argument suffers little from the metre. His last work was his Fables, in which he gave us the first example of a mode of writing which the Italians call refaccimento, a renovation of ancient writers by modernizing their language. Thus the old poem of Boiardo has been new dressed by Domenichi and Berni. The works of Chaucer, upon which this kind of rejuvenescence has been bestowed by Dryden, require little criticism. The tale of the cock seems hardly worth revival; and the story of Palamon and Arcite, containing an action unsuitable to the times in which it is placed, can hardly be suffered to pass without censure of the hyperbolical com mendation which Dryden has given it in the general Preface and in a poetical Dedication, a piece where his original fondness of remote conceits seems to have revived. Of the three pieces borrowed from Boccace, Sigismunda may be defended by the celebrity of the story. Theodore and Honoria, though it contains not much moral, yet afforded opportunities of striking description. And Cymon was formerly a tale of such reputation that at the Revival of Letters it was translated into Latin by one of the Beroalds. Whatever subjects employed his pen, he was still improving our measures and embellishing our language. In this volume are interspersed some short original poems which, with his prologues, epilogues, and songs, may be comprised in Congreve's remark that even those, if he had written nothing else, would have entitled him to the praise of excellence in his kind. One composition must, however, be distinguished. The Ode for St. Cecilia's Day, perhaps the last effort of his poetry, has been always considered as exhibiting the highest flight of fancy and the exactest nicety of art. This is allowed to stand without a rival. If indeed there is any excellence beyond it, in some other of Dryden's works that excellence must be found. Compared with the ode on Killigrew, it may be pronounced perhaps superior in the whole, but without any single part equal to the first stanza of the other. It is said to have cost Dryden a fortnight's labor; but it does not want its negligences. Some of the lines are without correspondent rhymes, a defect which I never detected but after an acquaintance of many years, and which the enthusiasm of the writer might hinder him from perceiving. His last stanza has less emotion than the former, but it is not less elegant in the diction. The conclusion is vicious; the music of Timotheus, which "raised a mortal to the skies," had only a metaphorical power; that of Cecilia, which "drew an angel down," had a real effect; the crown therefore could not reasonably be divided. In a general survey of Dryden's labors, he appears to have a mind very comprehensive by nature, and much enriched with acquired knowledge. His compositions are the effects of a vigorous genius operating upon large materials. The power that predominated in his intellectual operations was rather strong reason than quick sensibility. Upon all occasions that were presented, he studied rather than felt, and produced sentiments not such as Nature enforces, but meditation supplies. With the simple and elemental passions, as they spring separate in the mind, he seems not much acquainted, and seldom describes them but as they are complicated by the various relations of society, and confused in the tumults and agitations of life. What he says of Love may contribute to the explanation of his character: Love various minds does variously inspire; With pride it mounts, or with revenge it glows. Dryden's was not one of the "gentle bosoms." Love, as it subsists in itself, with no tendency but to the person loved, and wishing only for correspondent kindness, such love as shuts out all other interest, the love of the Golden Age, was too soft and subtle to put his faculties in motion. He hardly conceived it but in its turbulent effervescence with some other desires when it was inflamed by rivalry, or obstructed by difficulties; when it invigorated ambition, or exasperated revenge. He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetic, and had so little sensibility of the power of effusions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others. Simplicity gave him no pleasure; and for the first part of his life he looked on Otway with contempt, though at last, indeed very late, he confessed that in his play there was "Nature, which is the chief beauty." We do not always know our own motives. I am not certain whether it was not rather the difficulty which he found in exhibiting the genuine operations of the heart, than a servile submission to an injudicious audience, that filled his plays with false magnificence. It was necessary to fix attention; and the mind can be captivated only by recollection or by curiosity, by reviving natural sentiments, or impressing new appearances of things. Sentences were readier at his call than images; he could more easily fill the ear with some splendid novelty, than awaken those ideas that slumber in the heart.... Of Dryden's works it was said by Pope that he "could select from them better specimens of every mode of poetry than any other English writer could supply." Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer that enriched his language with such variety of models. To him we owe the improvement, perhaps the completion, of our metre, the refinement of our language, and much of the correctness of our sentiments. By him we were taught sapere et fari, · - to think naturally and express forcibly. Though Davies has reasoned in rhyme before him, it may be perhaps maintained that he was the first who joined argument with poetry. He showed us the true bounds of a translator's liberty. What was said of Rome, adorned by Augustus, may be applied by an easy metaphor to English poetry embellished by Dryden: Lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit. He found it brick, and he left it marble. ADDISON a name Addison is now to be considered as a critic, which the present generation is scarcely willing to allow him. His criticism is condemned as tentative or experimental, rather than scientific, and he is considered as deciding by taste rather than by principles. It is not uncommon for those who have grown wise by the labor of others to add a little of their own, and overlook their masters. Addison is now despised by some who perhaps would never have seen his defects but by the lights which he afforded them. That he always wrote as he would think it necessary to write now, cannot be affirmed; his instructions were such as the characters of his readers made proper. That general knowledge which now circulates in common talk, was in his time rarely to be found. Men not professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and in the female world any acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured. His purpose was to infuse literary curiosity by gentle and unsuspected conveyance, into the gay, the idle, and the wealthy. He therefore presented knowledge in the most alluring form, not lofty and austere, but accessible and familiar. When he showed them their defects, he showed them likewise that they might be easily supplied. His attempt succeeded; inquiry was awakened and comprehension expanded. An emulation of intellectual elegance was excited, and from this time to our own life has been gradually exalted, and conversation purified and enlarged. Dryden had, not many years before, scattered criticism over his prefaces with very little parsimony; but, though he sometimes condescended to be somewhat familiar, his manner was in general too scholastic for those who had yet their rudiments to learn, and found it not easy to understand their master. His observations were framed rather for those that were learning to write than for those that read only to talk. An instructor like Addison was now wanting, whose remarks, being superficial, might be easily understood, and, being just, might prepare the mind for more attainments. Had he presented Paradise Lost to the public with all the pomp of system and severity of science, the criticism would perhaps have been admired, and the poem still have been neglected. But by the blandishments of gentleness and facility he has made Milton an universal favorite, with whom readers of every class think it necessary to be pleased. He descended now and then to lower disquisitions, and by a serious display of the beauties of Chevy Chase1 exposed himself to the ridicule of Wagstaff, who bestowed a like pompous character on Tom Thumb, and to the contempt of Dennis, who, considering the fundamental position of his criticism, that Chevy Chase pleases, and ought to please, because it is natural, observes "that there is a way of deviating from nature by bombast or tumor, which soars above nature, and enlarges images beyond their real bulk; by affectation, which forsakes nature in quest of something unsuitable; and by imbecility, which degrades nature by faintness and diminution, by obscuring its appearances and weakening its effects." In Chevy Chase there is not much of either bombast or affectation, but there is chill and lifeless imbecility. The story cannot possibly be told in a manner that shall make less impression on the mind. Before the profound observers of the present race repose too securely on the consciousness of their superiority to Addison, let them consider his Remarks on Ovid, in which may be found specimens of criticism sufficiently subtle and refined; let them peruse likewise his essays on Wit, and on the Pleasures of Imagination, in which he founds art on the base of nature, and draws the principles of invention from dispositions inherent in the mind of man, with skill and elegance such as his contemners will not easily obtain. 1 See page 184, above. |